Saturday, October 22, 2016

As a teen, I thought Warren Beatty was hot. It's one of the weird aspects of being in denial about one's sexual orientation: you struggle to convince yourself that you are straight even as you have attraction to gorgeous males. The mental gymnastics are insane. Now, Vanity Fair has a lengthy article on Richmond, Virginia born Beatty - who has a transgender son. On a dreary Saturday morning, the article is an interesting read. Here are brief highlights:

He is one of the
most famous actors of the second half of the 20th century, was the most
talked-about wooer of women in his day (his former paramours are legion, and
all are beauties), and is one of Hollywood’s more successful filmmakers, known
for equal amounts of shrewdness and seductive charm. He has been called “the
Prince of Hollywood,” “the Pro,” and “Boss.” He was a famous movie star before
any of them—before Clint, before Redford, before Dustin, before Pacino, even
before his good friend Jack Nicholson. Throughout his nearly 60-year career as
an actor, director, screenwriter, and producer, Warren Beatty has been
nominated for 14 Academy Awards (including best actor, best picture, best
director, best original screenplay, and best adapted screenplay), winning the
best-director Oscar forReds in 1981. He pops up in the diaries of
Andy Warhol, the journals of J.F.K. historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a
biography of James Baldwin, and countless celebrity memoirs. Although a decade
can pass between the release of his movies, when they arrive on the scene they
are cultural events. And he’s coming squarely back into the public gaze again
this year, withRules
Don’t Apply, the rumored re-release ofBulworth, and the
upcoming 50th anniversary ofBonnie
and Clyde, in which he starred as Clyde Barrow.

Due to be
released next month,Rules Don’t Applyhas been described as a biographical
film about eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, but it’s actually about two
would-be lovers finding themselves in the labyrinth of Hollywood against a
backdrop of 1950s sexual repression. Beatty plays Howard Hughes in a supporting
role.

“There’s this misapprehension
that it’s a biopic,” Beatty explains, “which it’s not, although Howard is an
important character in it. I wanted to do a story about a girl who comes from
being the Apple Blossom Queen of Winchester, Virginia [Marla Mabrey, played by
Lily Collins], and a boy who is a Methodist from Fresno [Frank Forbes, played
by Alden Ehrenreich], who is under the same religious influences that I was
raised in. I wanted to do a story about that young man and that young woman
that also deals with money and misogyny in late-1950s Hollywood.”

One doesn’t immediately
associate Beatty with puritanical guilt and repression, but that is the world
he grew up in, in conservative Virginia in the 1940s and 50s, and the one he
has rebelled against his entire life. “I’m afraid it still remains a big
subject in America,” he says, “which often makes us the laughingstock of France
and other European countries. So I thought this would be fun to deal with—a
young man and a young woman involved with an unpredictable billionaire, who had
no rules he had to follow because of his inheritance and his way of life. So
it’s also about the effect of Hollywood on those rules, and the effect of
money.”

The story of a
young man coming to Hollywood from a conservative background is one he knows
all too well. He and his sister, the actress Shirley MacLaine, were raised by
Southern Baptist parents. Still, the family was somewhat bohemian. Their mother
was an acting teacher, their father a high-school principal who was also
something of a raconteur and bon vivant. Beatty recalled the first time he came
downstairs dressed in a suit for church, astonishing his parents. He also
admitted being convinced that if he had sex with a girl, he would have to marry
her, one of the many autobiographical touches he brings toRules Don’t Apply.

Just as Beatty
was something of a sexual revolutionary in the years emerging from the strict
mores of the 1950s, so his firstborn child is also a revolutionary. Stephen,
who is challenging cultural norms of sexuality, is an activist for the
transgender community. Identifying as transitioned at the age of 14, he changed
his name from Kathlyn Elizabeth to Stephen Ira. A poet and writer, he posted an
“Answer to Seven Questions” about his gender identity on the “WeHappyTrans” Web
site. One is struck by Stephen’s insouciant intelligence—he manages to be
playful, erudite, and eloquent all at once.

“He’s a revolutionary, a
genius, and my hero, as are all my children,” Beatty says when asked about
Stephen.

Historically, I have not been a fan of Hillary Clinton and, as the 2016 presidential campaign I decided to back her because (i) I thought she was more electable than Bernie Sanders in the general election, and (ii) she was the lesser of the two evils given those running for the GOP nomination. Once Trump won the GOP nomination, the latter factor became all the stronger for me. Now, a funny thing has happened. As the campaign circus has progressed, I have come to sort of like Hillary. She doesn't leave one warm and fuzzy, but candidly, that is not a factor that should matter in deciding who is competent to lead the country and face the complexities of the world today. The idea of wanting a president one could" have a beer with" is, in my opinion, the height of idiocy. Do you want a surgeon who is competent or one that you can go drinking with? It is the same concept. A column in the New York Times looks at why Hillary is winning so far and why she id the competent answer as to who should be elected on November 8, 2016. Here are highlights:

Hillary
Clinton is a terrible candidate. Hey, that’s what pundits have been saying ever
since this endless campaign began. You have to go back to Al Gore in 2000 to
find a politician who faced as much jeering from the news media, over
everything from claims of dishonesty (which usually turn out to be based on
nothing) to matters of personal style.

Strange to say, however, Mrs. Clinton won the Democratic nomination .
. . . How is that possible?

The usual suspects are
already coalescing around an answer — namely, that she just got lucky. If only
the Republicans hadn’t nominated Donald Trump, the story goes, she’d be losing
badly.

But here’s a contrarian
thought: Maybe Mrs. Clinton is winning because she possesses some fundamental
political strengths — strengths that fall into many pundits’ blind spots.

First
of all, who was this other, stronger candidate that the G.O.P. might have
chosen? Remember, Mr. Trump won the nomination because he gave his party’s base
what it wanted, channeling the racial antagonism that has been the driving
force for Republican electoral success for decades. All he did was say out loud
what his rivals were trying to convey with dog whistles, which explains why
they were so ineffective in opposing him.

And those establishment
candidates were much more Trumpian than those fantasizing about a different
history — say, one in which the G.O.P. nominated Marco Rubio — acknowledge.

How
many of them [GOP candidates] really believe that tax cuts have magical powers,
that climate change is a giant hoax, that saying the words “Islamic terrorism”
will somehow defeat ISIS? Yet pretending to believe these things is the price
of admission to the club — and the falsity of that pretense shines through.

When political commentators praise political talent, what they seem to
have in mind is the ability of a candidate to match one of a very limited set
of archetypes: the heroic leader, the back-slapping regular guy you’d like to
have a beer with, the soaring orator. Mrs. Clinton is none of these things: too
wonky, not to mention too female, to be a regular guy, a fairly mediocre
speechifier; her prepared zingers tend to fall flat.

Yet the person tens of
millions of viewers saw in this fall’s debates was hugely impressive all the
same: self-possessed, almost preternaturally calm under pressure, deeply
prepared, clearly in command of policy issues. And she was also working to a
strategic plan: Each debate victory looked much bigger after a couple of days,
once the implications had time to sink in, than it may have seemed on the
night.

Oh, and the strengths she
showed in the debates are also strengths that would serve her well as
president.

Furthermore, there’s one thing Mrs. Clinton brought to this campaign
that no establishment Republican could have matched: She truly cares about her
signature issues, and believes in the solutions she’s pushing.

I know, we’re supposed to
see her as coldly ambitious and calculating, and on some issues — like
macroeconomics — she does sound a bit bloodless, even when she clearly
understands the subject and is talking good sense. But when she’s talking about
women’s rights, or racial injustice, or support for families, her commitment,
even passion, are obvious. She’s genuine, in a way nobody in the other party
can be.

So let’s dispel with this fiction that Hillary Clinton is only
where she is through a random stroke of good luck. She’s a formidable figure,
and has been all along.

As some - who in my opinion are delusional - continue to claim that Donald Trump is a good businessman, there's one test that they utterly ignore: Trump's numerous bankruptcies and the fact that no American bank will make a loan to him and/or his entities. Trump has gamed the system, screwed over lenders and bond holders and other investors with abandon, always making sure that he flees the sinking ship, saving himself as others perish financially. It's as if he were Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon leaving the Titanic in a lifeboat with only 12 people in it, he and his wife's luggage included, leaving dozens to die who might have lived had the lifeboat been even remotely filled to capacity. The financial markets and bankers know Trump well, and economists predict that should he somehow win, the world's financial markets will tank, wiping out Americans' savings, IRA's and retirement funds. A piece in Politico looks at the likely wreckage. Here are highlights:

NEW YORK — Wall Street is set up for
a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the
White House.

New research out on Friday suggests that financial
markets strongly prefer a Hillary Clinton presidency and could react with
panicked selling should Trump defy the polls and deliver a shocking upset on
Nov. 8.

“Wall Street clearly prefers a Clinton win
certainly from the prospective of equity prices,” said Dartmouth College’s Eric
Zitzewitz, one of the authors of the new study along with the University of
Michigan’s Justin Wolfers. “You saw Clinton win the first debate and her odds
jumped and stocks moved right along with it. Should Trump somehow manage to win
you could see major Brexit-style selling.”

Stock prices around the world tanked over the summer when British voters
surprised pundits and voted in favor of pulling the country out of the European
Union. Trump himself now talks about his own upset prospects as “another
Brexit.”

The report also shows where
investors around the world are making big money on the 2016 campaign. Traders
betting on the Mexican peso to take a beating under a President Trump, who has
promised a trade crackdown, have lost big following debates in which Clinton
did well.

The Trump effect also shows up for traders
betting on market volatility. Futures contracts for the VIX index, which tracks
market volatility, fell sharply during the first debate, suggesting investors
expect much less volatility under a Clinton White House than a Trump White
House.

Oil prices rose during the first debate and gold
fell. Gold tends to be a safe haven when investors are worried about possible
economic and financial instability. And oil tends to go up when investors
expect stronger economic growth and more demand for energy.

Michael Obuchowski of Merlin Asset Management has watched every move in the
campaign closely— including all the WikiLeaks email dumps on Clinton — and made
two calls based on it: that Clinton will win and that she won’t go as far left
as some investors initially feared.

“I always assumed Trump would
eventually collapse so that meant staying in equities and going away from
certain high-dividend stocks assuming Clinton is going to win and try and tax
those dividends at a higher rate,” he said.

The new report suggests that the stock market is
worth 11 percent more under a Clinton presidency than a Trump presidency. This
is a highly unusual circumstance because markets historically prefer Republican
policies on taxes, regulation and trade to those of Democrats.. . . . Current
market action is the direct reverse of what happened in 2012 when President
Barack Obama was running for reelection against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt
Romney.

Investors now clearly back a Clinton presidency and by a large margin.

The Trump effect is also global.Britain’s FTSE 100 traced U.S. stock
prices higher following the first debate. Currencies in Canada, South Korea,
Australia and New Zealand — all major U.S. trading partners — tend to rise when
it appears Clinton is doing well and headed to victory.

“All told, these movements suggest that
financial markets expect a generally healthier domestic and international
economy under a President Clinton than under a President Trump,” Wolfers and
Zitzewitz write in their new paper.

This also suggests that a shock Trump victory next month could crush stock
prices, perhaps by as much as 10 percent, and send the peso and other
currencies sharply lower while ushering in a period of intense market
volatility as investors try and discern how Trump would govern and whether he
would make good on his pledge to start trade wars with Mexico and China and
deport 11 million current undocumented immigrants.

“You would see incredible pressure
on stock prices if Trump wins and everyone flooding into rare metals like gold
and into bonds” in the U.S., Germany and the United Kingdom, said Erik Jones,
professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International
Studies.

Overall, the authors of the new paper envision a massive global market
shock should Trump win. “Given the magnitude of the price movements, we
estimate that market participants believe that a Trump victory would reduce the
value of the S&P 500, the UK, and Asian stock markets by 10-15%,” they
write and “would reduce the oil price by $4, would lead to a 25% decline in the
Mexican Peso, and would significantly increase expected future stock market
volatility.”

Bottom line? By supporting Trump, many of his followers will be voting against their own financial best interest, falling once again to the GOP ploy of suckering them in by calls to their racism and xenophobia.

One of the problems with American society today is the fact free bubble in which much of the far right exists. Many of the right have literally no knowledge of what is really happening in the world and the causation behind events. One of the main purveyors of this embrace of ignorance and deliberate refusal to objective reality has heretofore been been Fox News - or Faux News on this blog. Now, Republicans appear to be abandoning Fox News, because the network is not sufficiently un-tethered to reality. What is frightening is that many of those walking away from Fox News will likely gravitate to even more ignorance based "news" outlet. Perhaps these people fleeing from Fox News will opt to make Storm Front or perhaps The Crusader, the KKK's official newspaper as their preferred source of "news." Salon looks at the phenomenon. Here are excerpts:

Since January,
Fox News has seen a precipitous drop in its reputation amongst its mostly
conservative viewership — falling to 50th place on a list of brands most
trusted by Republicans over the past two years.

In 2014, the
most dominant cable news channel was the 10th best-perceived brand by
Republicans, according to AdAge. But in a YouGov Brand Index survey
released at the end of February 2016, the perception of Fox News among
Republicans had “declined by approximately 50 percent since January of this
year” — to a three-year low.

And in a
just-released 2016 YouGov BrandIndex ranking, Fox News’ position plummeted to outside of the top-20 for the
first time.

Trump’s feud
with Kelly tarnished the networks’ perception amongst viewers who suspected an
anti-Trump bias. And while Trump still found safe refuge at “Fox & Friends”
and even had Fox News host Sean Hannity appear in a campaign ad on his behalf,
the blatant boosting alienated supporters of other Republican candidates.

Then one of the
network’s most veteran female anchors accused former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes
of sexual harassment.

After Gretchen
Carlson filed a blockbuster lawsuit against the Fox News boss, the network saw
its biggest shake-up with the retirement of longtime host Greta Van Susteren
and the ousting of Ailes — who went on to join the Trump campaign as an
adviser.

Enter Trump.TV.
As Salon’s Matthew Sheffield’s explained, Trump will
be ideally situated to benefit from the demise of the Fox News brand among
Republicans. Reports since Ailes’ ousting indicate that Rupert Murdoch and sons
Lachlan and James, who help run parent company 21st Century Fox, plan to begin
shedding the network’s image as a right-wing media outfit in favor of a more
serious journalistic effort.

Host Shepard
Smith recently told the Huffington
Post that Murdoch indicated after the Ailes scandal that he planned to make Fox
News “the best news organization in the America.”

But a more
mainstream news source is not what Republican viewers want. While Fox News’
reputational ranking went down, Republicans still despise both CNN and MSNBC
much more. CNN and MSNBC were ranked 1,470 and 1,471, respectively.

“If you’re tired
of biased, mainstream media reporting (otherwise known as Crooked Hillary’s
super PAC), tune into my Facebook Live broadcast,” Trump told his supporters
ahead of the third presidential debate Wednesday. According to the
Financial Times, the nearly four hours of coverage had 8.9 million views by
Thursday afternoon.

Despite Donald Trump's lie claim that he respects women, his past statements and behavior tell a different tale. With a total of 10 women so far coming forward to describe how Trump engaged in sexual harassment or near sexual assault of precisely the type Trump boasted about in the 2005 Entertainment Tonight tape, it is pretty clear that Trump is a predatory and sexist pig. The New York Post reports that a new poll found that 63% of Americans surveyed (including a third of Republicans) believe Trump committed sexual assault in the past. What I find most ironic is that his hometown media is the most vehement in its rejection of Trump and effort to expose him for what he really is. Perhaps all Trump's years of bullying people, screwing over contractors and investors and riding rough shod over people in the greater New York City area is at last coming home to roost. The New York Daily News is now publicizing Trumps "alcoholism" - Trump's own word - for "hot" teenage girls and "women." I'd say the best description of the many, in my opinion, falls into the category of "pervert" and "lecher." Here are highlights from the Daily News:

Donald Trump claims to only hire the “best people,”
but also boasted once of hiring a teenager with no experience just because she
was beautiful.

In video taken of Trump giving a paid Learning Annex speech
in 2007, the Republican presidential candidate — currently accused of groping
as many as 11 women against their will — said he insisted on hiring “a
beautiful girl, 17 or 18, so beautiful” as a waitress even though she had no
work history.

He also told the crowd that hot women are his “alcoholism”
and that having one near him was like setting a glass of Scotch in front of a
drunk.

The macho-man exchange occurred at a San Francisco Learning
Annex talk that Trump was reportedly paid $1.5 million to give.

The cringe-worthy moment began when a woman in the
audience asked Trump how many jets he owned and how she could apply to be a
flight attendant.

Trump, leaning over the podium, demanded she come up onstage
— as wolf whistles and loud cheers erupted from the men in the crowd.

Video of the 2007 event shows the woman, who introduced
herself as Juliet, crossing the stage as Trump leers at her low cut blouse and
ample cleavage.

After giving her a blatant once over when she arrives at the
podium, the married Trump wraps an arm around her squeezes and says, “You’re
hired.”

As Juliet pivots and walks away, Trump keeps his eyes
trained on her derriere.

“Now if she worked on my plane that’s like a death wish for me,”
Trump says, before going into his riff that beautiful women are his biggest
addiction and weakness.

Trump, who is trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton in the latest
polls by 7 percentage points in the latest polls, saw his 11th accuser emerge
Thursday — the day after the third and final presidential debate.

Wellness expert Karena Virginia recounted the humiliating
hands-on experience with The Donald during the 1998 edition of the tennis
championships.

I was in shock,” she said at a Manhattan news conference
about their encounter. “I felt intimidated and powerless.”

The GOP nominee — as he has with the 10 previous women who
made similar charges — dismissed Virginia’s tale as bogus.

Virginia, like several other Trump accusers, said she
was moved to come forward after a long-buried videotape emerged in which the
businessman bragged about his crude treatment of women.

Trump campaign deputy communications director Jessica Ditto
ripped the woman’s attorney Gloria Allred, who last week appeared with another
of The Donald’s accusers — Summer Zervos, once a contestant on “The
Apprentice.” Allred also represents several women accusing Bill Cosby of
sexually assaulting them.

Having raised a son and now with two grandsons, Trump epitomizes what I would never want these males to be like or think like. Meanwhile, my two Mellennial generation daughters have jumped on the "nasty woman" meme that mocks Trump and his boorish, low class sexism.

Many early on recognized Donald Trump as being spectacularly unfit for the office of President of the United States. Despite all his boasting, his business record is a mess and the fact that American banks will not make loans to him and his organization - hence his need for Russian money - ought to underscore his unfitness. And that doesn't even get to the issue of his frightening temperament and uncontrolled narcissism. The man is a train wreck and only a Republican Party too far gone in the process of hijacking by racists and Christofascists (see the prior post) could have nominated a man so lacking in so many ways. Had a decent candidate been nominated, Hillary Clinton would face a harder task to win the election. That said, an editorial in the Washington Post argues why Hillary has proven herself worthy of the presidency. Here are highlights:

IF PRESENT
trends continue — and we emphasize “if” — Hillary Clinton will be elected
president on Nov. 8, in an ironic conclusion to a political year that
supposedly belonged to outsiders and populists such as Donald Trump and Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Why has Ms. Clinton, the “establishment” alternative facing
the voters, wound up in the lead at this late date? According to much
conventional wisdom, she is the beneficiary of structural factors, such as
voter demographics, and of good fortune — in the form of the Republican Party’s
spectacularly irresponsible choice of an incompetent nominee.

Nevertheless,
it is time to point out another reason Ms. Clinton is winning: She is earning
it. She and her campaign have remained disciplined and even-keeled through
tempests large and small — and through the tests of political communication and
argument known as the presidential debates, both against Mr. Sanders and
against Mr. Trump. It is not easy to stand on a stage for 90 minutes and parry
words with an opponent, moderators and town-hall invitees; still less is it
easy to do so while keeping one’s cool amid sleazy provocations and
unpredictable insults from Mr. Trump. Through it all, Ms. Clinton has stayed
focused on issues, laying out a program for the country that we don’t accept in
every particular but that is well within the broad mainstream of plausible
policy alternatives.

[S]he
has kept her rhetoric civil and inclusive, in the face of an opponent bent on
trashing the norms of democratic discourse. This is no mere style point. It is
in a way substantive too, because this election has taken on importance beyond
the already-high stakes for national policy; it has turned into a trial of our
democratic culture. Certainly, Ms. Clinton has found ways to needle her
opponent. But by preparing for the debates, using them to advance rational
arguments and refraining from responding in kind to Mr. Trump’s lowest blows,
Ms. Clinton has exemplified what’s still good about that culture. In fact, you
might say she has reminded people of what’s good about “establishment”
politicians. . . .

[W]e question the
common assumption that any conventional Republican would be trouncing Ms.
Clinton — especially because most of the Republicans usually cited were
themselves trounced by the man now trailing the Democratic nominee. Ms.
Clinton’s performance has apparently won her more appreciation from the
electorate — a precious measure of political capital she will badly need if it
does indeed fall to her to unite the country next year.

As noted in numerous posts, I believe that the Republican Party is beyond the point of no return. The cancer of Christofascists, white nativists, and outright open racists within the party - and its local city/county committee base - has metastasized to a point where there is no realistic possibility of reform. The GOP faces either a slow and agonizing death or perhaps a massive flame out in the wake of what will be a historic defeat for Donald Trump and, with luck, many down ticket Republicans. A piece in Slate looks at the spectacle of the death of a major political party. Here are highlights:

For most of the now almost-forgotten vice presidential
debate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pencekept his cool, ignoring, deflecting, oroutright denyingany effort by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine to tie him to his
running mate, Donald Trump. But it’s hard to keep your composure for the length
of a debate. It takeswork. And toward the end of the 90-minute showdown, Pence began
to falter, and then with a single infelicitous phrase he evoked the only wall
Trump will ever build: the one between the Republican Party and Latino voters.

It happened after Kaine returned to Trump’s rhetoric,
pressing Pence to answer for his running mate’s insults and bigotry. “When
Donald Trump says women or Mexicans are rapists and criminals … or John McCain
is not a hero, he is showing you who he is,” said the Virginia senator, to
which Pence had a reply. “Senator,” he said, “you’ve whipped out that Mexican
thing again.” Adding, “There are criminal aliens in this country, Tim, who have
come into this country illegally who are perpetrating violence and taking
American lives.”

That
Mexican thing.That Mexican thing, to be precise, is Trump’s anti-Hispanic
demagoguery, which stretches back to the beginning of the campaign. . .
. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I
assume, are good people.”

Hispanic voters, who see Trump as an unacceptable risk. This
is no small thing. Political parties can make inroads with groups that disagree
with them—that’s just persuasion. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to
make gains with groups that see you as a danger to their futures. By placing
Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and indulging his nativism and
xenophobia, the Republican Party has said with its actions that it doesn’t want
Latinos in its tent. Republicans may thus end up estranged from another group
of nonwhite voters. . . . . the GOP has shown itself hostile to the idea
of a pluralistic, multiracial America with room and opportunity for Americans
of all origins.

For Trump, Latino immigrants join Muslims and Syrian refugees
as potential threats, fundamentally incompatible with American life. If they’re
here, they have to be removed, and if they’re not here, they need to be kept
out. In turn, for Latino Americans and their families, this makes Trump an
existential threat to their lives and livelihoods.Only 21 percentof Latinos
say the GOP cares about their community, and 70 percent say that Trump has made
the Republican Party more hostile to them..
. . . Eighty-two percentof respondents agreed with the first statement,
that Trump makes them fear for their families and their country.

The repudiation of Goldwater [in 1964] would be the last step
in a realignment of black Americans that had begun in the days of Franklin
Roosevelt. From then on, the national Republican Party would struggle to crack
double digits with black voters, despite the strength of traditional beliefs
and practices among black communities, from religious practice to traditions of
self-help and self-reliance. The reason was straightforward: Goldwater wasn’t
just offensive; he articulated a vision of national life that would inevitably
leave black Americans on the margins as second-class citizens, subject to the
whims of segregationists and their allies. And if Goldwater didn’t see it, his
explicitly anti-black allies did.Republican politics—is awhiteideology. Unresponsive to the
particular concerns of nonwhites—around issues of discrimination and racial
inequality—it is a drive to preserve a status quo built around the political
and economic dominance of white Americans. This is more explicit in the age of
Donald Trump, but it’s always been true, from Goldwater to the present.

The Great Recession supercharged anti-immigration—and
anti-immigrant—sentiment among GOP voters, and Republican lawmakers followed
along, passing restrictive new laws after the party swept statehouses in the
2010 midterm elections. Indeed, we saw an inkling of risinganti-Latinosentiment in 2009, when Obama’s nomination of
Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court was met with a wave of racist criticism.

[V]oting and party affiliation are habits. Once set, they
tend not to change. And looking forward from the present, there’s a real chance
that Latino voting takes the same path as black voting, with routine and
overwhelming support going to Democratic presidential candidates. Again,
California gives us a glimpse of what this looks like. Following Republican
Gov. Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant crusades in the 1990s, Latino Californians
moved decisively into the Democratic column. By the end of the last decade, the
state was a Democratic stronghold,.
. .

And for those Republicans who don’t want Trump or Trumpism?
It may be too late. The thing about a lily-white Republican Party is that it
doesn’t have the diversity it needs to resist white resentment and white rage.
Republicans crossed a point of no return. Raw ethnonationalism is their future,
even if they don’t want it.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Some of us - including the GOP's own post 2012 loss post mortem - have long said that the GOP was headed toward either oblivion or permanent minority party status if it did not reform itself, drop its racism and homophobia, and end its war on women. All such warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Now, as a piece in Politico notes, there is a chance that Arizona, a state that has voted Republican for 15 out of the last 16 election cycles, may go for Hillary Clinton. While Trump has exacerbated the GOP's problems with all but white Christofascists, the party's own policies and bigotry have not only created the problem but gave Trump a platform to use as a launch pad for his message of white nationalism, racism, and religious discrimination. Here are article highlights:

PHOENIX — First lady Michelle Obama
didn’t even need to say the word “Arizona” for the first 20 minutes of her
rally here on Thursday to send shock waves across the state.

The very presence of the Democrats’
most coveted surrogate in the traditionally deep-red state was enough to send
the message that Hillary Clinton is taking it seriously, and Obama’s appeal to
local Democrats just hours after the final debate was designed to make the
stakes clear.

The question in Arizona now isn’t whether a state that’s gone Republican in 15
of the past 16 elections is suddenly in play thanks to Trump — many veteran
Republicans concede that it is. The real question is whether Democrats, led by
Clinton, are justified in believing that the country has just met its newest
swing state.

“I wouldn’t call it blue or even
purple quite yet,” said a longtime Republican strategist with extensive
experience in Arizona, who nevertheless expects Clinton to win the state
because of Trump’s weaknesses. “I think it’s a perfect storm of factors that
have really put it very much in play just this time around."Trump allies reject the idea that
Democrats have anything close to a shot here, but even the state’s most
skeptical operatives — who acknowledge that Democratic candidates still need to
sway large numbers of independents to win state-wide — see Arizona’s
battleground status as a fast-approaching reality.

That’s partly due to Trump’s unique unpopularity with Arizona’s large Native
American and Mormon populations, Gary Johnson’s appeal to Libertarian-leaning
voters in the western part of Arizona, and the conservative business
community’s skepticism about Trump's tough talk on Mexico given the state’s
trade relationship with the country.

It's why Democrats, led by Clinton’s
campaign, are flooding the state with headline-grabbing surrogates — Obama,
Bernie Sanders, and Chelsea Clinton — and homestretch advertising and
get-out-the-vote resources to the tune of $2 million. And it’s why Democrats
are eyeing a chance to lay the groundwork for 2018 and 2020.

One of Trump’s highest-profile long-standing Republican critics is
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, and now his colleague McCain has backed away from his
own tepid Trump support, making for an uncomfortable dynamic within the state
GOP leadership that recently skewered Washington pols who abandoned the
nominee.

Arizona’s Democrat-leaning Latino population is
growing, which has helped shift Phoenix’s Maricopa County away from its
Republican tradition, said veteran state Democratic operative Andrew Gordon. If
that population were to vote more reliably — as it’s expected to in a year that
features anti-illegal immigration crusader Arpaio on the ballot, and trailing —
then the state would follow New Mexico and Nevada into the purple-tinted
category, he said.

As I have said before, the GOP is focused on the past and caters to a demographic that is literally dying off. I hope the Democrats put on a major push. I want to see Trump suffer one of the worse losses in recent memory. The, just maybe, the GOP will get its head out of its ass and throw the Christofascists and white supremacists out of the party.

It
seemed clear to everyone else. Mr. Trump was being booed at a charity dinner.

As regular readers know, I do not hold the Roman Catholic Church in very high esteem even - or perhaps because - I am a former Catholic. I hold New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan (a/k/a Porky Pig) in even lower esteem given his past actions prior to coming to New York to screw over victims of priestly sex abuse in his prior diocese. That said, in New York City there is a long tradition of politicians attending the Al Smith Fundraiser to raise funds to benefit disadvantaged youth through Catholic outreach programs. Driving home from dinner with the husband and friends I happened to catch a portion of Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's remarks at the event. Trump apparently failed to read the memo about being self- deprecation and being funny. His comments for the most part brought no laughs and many boos, especially as he launched into Hillary Clinton. In comparison, as has been the case in the presidential debates, Clinton showed herself to be a class act. The New York Times looks at the evening and Trump's leaden performance. Here are highlights:

Hillary
Clinton and Donald
J. Trump appeared together Thursday night for a ritzy gathering,
delivering remarks at the white-tie Al Smith charity dinner at the Waldorf
Astoria in Manhattan.

In most presidential campaigns, the dinner, which benefits
Roman Catholic charities, functions as a welcome respite, a forum for levity
and self-deprecation in the throes of a heated election.

This year, it just so happens that two New Yorkers can also be found at the
top of the ballot.

Here are the highlights:

• And so they came, in tails and fuchsia. The introduction
of Melania Trump (sans pussybow), then Mrs. Clinton (to cheers and applause),
then Mr. Trump (to slightly less effusive cheers, and scattered boos).

• Just like in
the last two debates, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump did not shake hands. Instead
they beamed and ignored one another, until the evening’s M.C., Cardinal Timothy
M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, performed a veritable act of
God — inserting himself between the two rivals, with no physical altercation.

• Alfred E. Smith IV, the
chairman of the dinner, seemed to offer a preview of what may await Mr. Trump
as he tries to return to New York society life should he not win the White
House in November.

“Before the dinner started, Trump went to Hillary and
asked how are you,” Mr. Smith said, setting up the punch line. “She said, ‘I’m
fine — now get out of the ladies’ dressing room.’”

Finally, he
turned the podium over to Mr. Trump. “No matter how the coin toss ended, our
next speaker was going to say it was rigged,” Mr. Smith said, to laughter.
“Donald, the microphone is yours and it’s working.”

• Mr. Trump
seemed to miss the self-deprecation memo . . . .

“Last night I
called Hillary ‘a nasty woman’” Mr. Trump said, reprising a line from
Wednesday’s debate that many found sexist and offensive. “But this stuff is
all relative. After listening to Hillary rattle on and on and on, I don’t think
so badly of Rosie O’Donnell anymore. In fact, I’m actually starting to like
Rosie a lot.”

• Mrs. Clinton began with
the traditional self-deprecating joke: “I took a break from my rigorous nap
schedule to be here.” The audience, she added, should be grateful: “Usually I
charge a lot for speeches like this.”

• Mrs. Clinton later turned cutting, with a biting edge
of hard truth.
“It’s amazing I’m up here after Donald,” she said. “I
didn’t think he’d be O.K. with a peaceful transition of power.”

Then, she spoke of the Statue
of Liberty, recounting how for most Americans, the green lady of
freedom represents a shining beacon and welcome for immigrants arriving on the
nation’s shores. But Mr. Trump, she added with a glint of steel, “sees the
Statue of Liberty and sees a four.”

• The person who seemed to
enjoy the evening least was Mr. Trump. He sat with his arms tightly folded as
Mrs. Clinton spoke, a similarly taut smile across his face. But when Mrs.
Clinton returned to one of his favorite themes — her health — he seemed
momentarily buoyed.

Mr. Trump, the Democratic nominee said, had chivalrously
sent a car to ferry her to the dinner. “Actually, it was a hearse,” Mrs.
Clinton said. And finally, Mr.
Trump laughed with real joy.

I think I despise Trump more with every passing day. As for his supporters, I am aghast at how they allow their racism and misogyny to cause them to support a vile individual like Trump. I am beginning to believe that the belong in the same category as Christofascists: they should not be welcomed in sane and polite company.

Making it clear that he holds American democracy and wants to "crown himself king" to quote one headline at Politico, many are saying that Donald Trump has increased the chances for an electoral catastrophe up and down the GOP ticket. Frankly, I hope the prediction proves accurate and that the GOP suffers horrific defeats. For decades now, the Republican Party has been a festering swamp of insanity and rejection of objective reality and facts. Lead by the Christofascists who live in a fantasy world, science has been rejected as has all respect for science and knowledge. Donald Trump is but one example of where the embrace of ignorance and bigotry has taken the GOP. A piece in Politico looks at the initial reactions to Trump's devastating performance during last night's debate. Here are excerpts:

Donald Trump’s rocky performance on
the final debate stage did little to allay his party’s concerns that the GOP is
headed for an electoral catastrophe up and down the ticket.

In interviews with over a dozen
senior Republican strategists, not one said Trump did anything to change the
trajectory of a contest that is growing further out of reach. And many said
they were deeply distressed by Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the
Nov. 8 election, an eyebrow-raising moment already dominating headlines.

With Trump’s prospects for securing 270 electoral votes growing dimmer by the
day, many Republicans have turned their focus to the gritty, unpleasant task of
protecting the party’s congressional majorities. Trump, they said, did little
to buttress the GOP ticket — and may have worsened its position by repeating
his claim that the election is rigged, something congressional Republicans are
sure to be pressed on in the days to come.

Immediately after Trump’s remark,
several party higher-ups, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, took to Twitter to distance themselves from it.

“The biggest loser tonight was not
Trump, the presidential race is over,” said Robert Blizzard, a GOP pollster who
is working on a number of congressional races. “Instead, down-ticket
Republicans lost tonight — they needed some help and got absolutely none.”

While many candidates have taken a hit since the release of the bombshell
“Access Hollywood” tape, party operatives maintain that the bottom hasn’t
completely fallen out and that a down-ballot landslide isn’t necessarily in the
cards.

Yet many Republicans were eager to
see Trump deliver a steady performance, something that would stabilize his poll
numbers at a time when surveys show him losing ground in traditionally
conservative states like Arizona, Georgia, and Utah.

Steve Schmidt, who guided John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said that
Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting election results would overshadow any
other strong moments he had.

“It’s the one and only headline that
matters coming out of the debate,” said Schmidt. “It’s absolutely unprecedented
for any presidential candidate in the history of the country.”

To some, the performance represented what’s gone awry with
the Trump campaign. After exhibiting moments of discipline early on, he
squandered it later — with his remarks on the election, with his refusal to
criticize Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and with his comment that Hillary
Clinton is a “nasty woman.” That Trump would go so far as to criticize
Ronald Reagan . . . on trade policy, left some Republicans aghast.

[T]he debate could have longer-term repercussions, potentially
increasing the urgency with which down-ballot Republicans begin presenting
themselves as a “check and balance” to a Clinton presidency. In doing so, they
would all but concede that Trump is destined to fall short.

“Trump was already behind,” said Bill Kristol, a
Trump critic and the editor-in-chief of the conservative publication The Weekly
Standard. “He didn't help himself tonight, indeed he hurt himself. He's very
likely to lose, and to lose badly. He'll drag the Senate and House down with
him unless Senate and House candidates can make the case they're needed to
check and balance Hillary.”

The moral? Never nominate someone who is mentally ill to be your party's standard bearing. The GOP deserves whatever catastrophes that may be the result of such irresponsible behavior and actions.

I have always viewed Trump as a clear and present danger to America ever since he launched his narcissism driven campaign. Last night he confirmed it for all to see when he refused to confirm that he would aide by the election results, win or lose. His refusal should come as no surprise give the narcissistic personality disorder he seemingly suffers from. A disorder exhibited by many of history's worse tyrants, including Hitler, Stalin - and perhaps Vladimir Putin. Everything is ALWAYS about them, they are never wrong, and they cannot handle that people might reject them and/or their dangerous agenda. The main editorial in the Washington Post sums up Trump's self-centered, ego driven existence and the threat that he (and some of his insane supporters) poses to the country. Here are highlights:

DONALD TRUMP
showed a bit more self-control in the third and final presidential debate
Wednesday night than he had in the previous two. His back and forth with
Hillary Clinton was more substantive, thanks in part to firm guidance from
moderator Chris Wallace. But all of that was overshadowed by Mr. Trump’s
breathtaking refusal to say that he will accept the results of the election.

“I will look at it at the time,” he said. “The media is so
dishonest and so corrupt . . . they poison the minds of the voters . . . She
should never have been allowed to run for the presidency.”

Ms. Clinton rightly called his stance a “horrifying” repudiation
of U.S. democracy. Respecting the will of the voters has since the end of the
Civil War allowed for a peaceful transition of power that has made this country
the envy of the world.

Next
to that, policy issues seem small. Yet the policy discussion was clarifying
also, exposing as it did Mr. Trump’s ignorance of — or is it distaste for? —
facts and policy. He again insisted that the North American Free Trade
Agreement has sucked jobs from the country, when economists have found
otherwise. He indicated the debt would take care of itself under his economic
plan because “we will have created a tremendous economic machine,” which is
pure snake oil.

In
another striking moment, Mr. Trump denied that the Russian government has been
meddling in this election, refusing to accept the judgment of the country’s
intelligence community. Ms. Clinton said “the most important question” was
whether Mr. Trump would acknowledge Moscow’s interference. Mr. Trump at
first declined to do so, saying he doubted the reports by U.S. intelligence
agencies. He avoided any criticism of Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin, repeatedly
insisting it would be “good” to get along with Russia, with no mention of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other actions that have made getting along
difficult.

When
Mr. Wallace turned to the scandals that have dominated the past month, Mr.
Trump incorrectly insisted that the women who have come forward to accuse him
of sexual misconduct have been “debunked.”

These
are gaps that would have been probed and tested in a normal campaign. They fade
to the status of trivia in the face of an opponent who will not accept the
basic rules of American democracy.

The man is very, very dangerous and the spineless leadership of what's left of the GOP must act decisively to rein this Frankenstein monster in under control.

If nothing else, Donald Trump's presidential campaign has starkly revealed the moral bankruptcy of the falsely labeled "Religious Right." Many of the movement's leaders have shown a total disregard for morality and the Gospel message has they have sworn fealty to Donald Trump in exchange for what they see as promises of power for themselves. As one who has followed disingenuously named "family values" organizations - many of which have now garnered a hate group designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center that monitors extremist groups - for close to two decades, none of this should come as a surprise. Anti-abortion extremism and then anti-LGBT extremism (after abortion ceased to be a cash cow) has lined the pockets of organization leaders and allowed them to demand a seat at the table in Republican power maneuvers. As for the so-called "good Christians," most have been as typically is the case far too quiet in condemning thier hate-filled and power hungry coreligionists. A piece in the New York Times looks at how Trump has revealed such groups for the horrible entities that they are in fact. Here are highlights:

Donald J. Trump had already roiled the religious right, casting the
Republican Party’s most reliable voting bloc into an abyss of
despair, recriminations and uncertainty about the future. Then the 2005 video
surfaced of him boasting about his sexual predations and women began coming
forward to accuse him of sexual assault.

“The world is getting a
glimpse into the dark and rotting core of evangelicalism,” an evangelical with
deep roots in the movement told me recently.

The divide — or, more aptly,
the crater — between pro-Trump and anti-Trump evangelicals is a window into the
future of the Republican Party. White evangelical voters are the heart of the
party’s base, the loyal foot soldiers who turn out for the party’s presidential
nominee every time. A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute taken in part
after the video’s release shows 65 percent of white evangelicals
intending to vote for Mr. Trump.

Most telling, though, is the significant gender gap: while 72 percent
of white evangelical men said they intend to vote for Mr. Trump, only 58
percent of white evangelical women did.

A defection by even 15
percent or 20 percent of Republican evangelicals from lock-step support for the
party could be a major contributing factor to a collapse of the its national
electoral viability. But that is just one measure of the splintering of this
devoted voting bloc. The movement is also being subjected to a very public
display of division between the pro- and anti-Trump camps and open talk among
evangelicals about pro-Trump leaders’ plummeting credibility.

The
Monday after America heard Mr. Trump’s vulgar boasting, Ralph Reed, the
political strategist thought to have a genius for turning out evangelical
voters, delivered a full-throated defense of why Christians
should vote for the nominee to students at Liberty University. That same day,
Mark DeMoss, a highly regarded Christian public relations professional who, in
the 1980s, was the chief of staff to Liberty’s founder, Jerry Falwell Sr., told
me, “The evangelical movement has, in my view, forfeited any future moral
authority in American public life.” Mr. DeMoss, himself a Liberty alumnus, was
asked to resign from the university board’s executive committee in February
after he was publicly critical of the endorsement of Mr.
Trump by Liberty’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr.

Yet
the reaction of a group of Liberty students provided another data point in the
unfolding evangelical power collapse. The students released a letter declaring that Mr. Trump “is absolutely
opposed to what we believe, and does not have our support.”

Although its leaders may not admit it, the political apparatus of the
religious right that has persisted in supporting Mr. Trump’s candidacy is
driven by a quest to retain a seat at a potential Republican White House table.

But capitulating to Mr.
Trump has stripped those leaders of their leverage. In previous elections, they
vetted the candidates, dangling the indispensable evangelical vote in exchange
for promises about Supreme Court justices and dedication to “Christian values.”
Mr. Trump reversed that dynamic. . . . . His most Trumpian promise is his
pledge to repeal the Johnson Amendment, a rarely enforced law that bars houses
of worship and other nonprofit groups from using tax-exempt resources to
endorse political candidates.

“It will take a long time,” Jerushah Armfield, an evangelical writer
and the granddaughter of the iconic evangelist Billy Graham, told me, “for
evangelicals to redeem their moral credibility — if they even can.”

There remains one thing that
could still unite conservative evangelicals: a Hillary Clinton presidency. It’s
still entirely foreseeable that the religious right, along with other pro-Trump
partisans, would fight Mrs. Clinton’s legislative agenda, her Supreme Court
nominees and even the legitimacy of her election.

By hitching their wagon to Mr. Trump, religious-right leaders are also
tying their fortunes to the alt-right, the predominant movement supportive of,
and bolstered by, the Trump campaign. As a largely secular movement,
though, the alt-right not only is uninterested in the religious right’s
concerns, it also threatens to eclipse the religious right within the
Republican Party. And it’s a movement simmering with racism, xenophobia and
anti-Semitism.

The moral authority of evangelical Christians was always misplaced and stemmed, in my view, from undeserved deference on the part of most of the media. The ugly truth has been there for decades if one bothered to look for it. Here in Virginia, The Family Foundation continues to be the puppeteer of the Virginia GOP as it pushes its agenda of hate, bigotry, and false piety.

Translate This Page

Contact Me to Order Title Work

LGBT Legal Services

About Me

Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

Disclaimer on Opinions and Content

This Blog contains content that may be innapropriate for readers under the legal age of 18. IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE, PLEASE LEAVE NOW. Thank you

This is an opinion and commentary blog and the opinions and contents of this Blog - including opinions expressed concerning opponents of LGBT equality - are the opinions only of the individual blogger and should not be attributed to any other individuals or to any organization of which the blogger is a past or current member.

Followers

Michael-in-Norfolk disclaims any and all responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, reliability, operability, or availability of information or material displayed on this site and does not claim credit for any images or articles featured on this site, unless otherwise noted. All visual content is copyrighted to it's respectful owners. Information on this site may contain errors or inaccuracies, and Michael-in-Norfolk does not make warranty as to the correctness or reliability of the site's content. If you own rights to any of the images or articles, and do not wish them to appear on this site, please contact Michael-in-Norfolk via e-mail and they will be promptly removed. Michael-in-Norfolk contains links to other Internet sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience and are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information or content in such site has been endorsed or approved by this blog.